Promoting Early Childhood Education (ECE)
in Child Friendly Schools in Sindh
In a bid to scale up the provision of early childhood education in marginalized areas of Pakistan, CGN-P has joined hands with UNICEF to provide customized activity based education to three to five year olds in areas of Interior Sindh.
Based on a successfully piloted model for Early Childhood Education for children under the age of five, this program is an effort to target fundamentals flaws in the public schooling system which does not cater to the strong educational needs of children under the age of five.
Aware that children in this age bracket learn fastest than at any other age, the program will establish 100 Early Childhood Education centers in public schools of five districts of Sindh. The centers will function under the supervision of Local Education Department management and local non governmental organizations who will provide day to day technical assistance. The following districts and organizations will be part of this exercise.
- Khairpur –Indus Resource Center
- Mirpurkhas – Society for Safe Environment and Welfare of Agrarians in Pakistan
- Sanghar – Sindh Agriculture and Forestry workers Coordinating Organization
- Thatta –Strengthening Participatory Organization
- Umerkot –Sami Foundation
The centers will be initiated in 20 public schools of each district and will be run on a day to day basis by two teachers one of whom will be from the school staff and the other will be hired locally. Capacity building sessions equipping teachers with the necessary skills to educate children in this age bracket will be organized. CGN-P master trainers will train the teachers, heads, members of local partner organizations and education department management in the age appropriate application of Interactive teaching and learning methodologies.
The centers will be provided with interactive learning material and methodology books and guides in the local language to help the teachers create child centered classrooms preparing young children for formal schooling.
Approximately 4000 girls will benefit from these centers while professional capacities of 300 teachers and 150 government officials and members of partner NGO’s will be built. A baseline survey conducted at the beginning of the project will provide a clear idea of the learning level of the children and the teachers in the area and will be supplemented by an assessment survey undertaken at the end of a period of five months to assess the impact of the intervention
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